Moon Trees

Moon trees are trees grown from seeds taken into orbit around the Moon. The idea was first proposed by Edward P. Cliff, the Chief of the United States Forest Service, who convinced Stuart Roosa, the Command Module Pilot on the Apollo 14 mission, to bring a small canister containing about 500 seeds aboard the module in 1971. Seeds for the experiment were chosen from five species of tree: loblolly pine, sycamore, sweetgum, redwood, and Douglas fir. In 2022, NASA announced it would be reviving the moon tree program by carrying 1,000 seeds aboard Artemis 1.

History

After the flight, the seeds were sent to the southern Forest Service station in Gulfport, Mississippi, and to the western station in Placerville, California, with the intent to germinate them. Nearly all the seeds germinated successfully, and after a few years, the Forest Service had about 420 seedlings. Some of these were planted alongside their Earth-bound counterparts, which were specifically set aside as controls. After more than 40 years, there was no discernible difference between the two classes of trees. Most of the "Moon trees" were given away in 1975 and 1976 to state forestry organizations, in order to be planted as part of the nation's bicentennial celebration. Since the trees were all of southern or western species, not all states received trees. A Loblolly Pine was planted at the White House, and trees were planted in Brazil, Switzerland, and presented to Emperor Hirohito, among others.

The locations of many of the trees that were planted from these seeds were largely unknown for decades. In 1996, a third-grade teacher, Joan Goble, and her students found a tree in their local area with a plaque identifying it as a moon tree. Goble sent an email to NASA, and reached employee Dave Williams. Williams was unaware of the trees' existence, as were most of his colleagues at NASA. Upon doing some research, Williams found some old newspaper clippings that described the initial actions taken by Roosa to bring these seeds to space and home to be planted.We Almost Forgot About the Moon Trees: A collection of tree seeds that went round and round the moon was scattered far and wide back home
by Marina Koren. The seeds orbited the Moon, but were not landed on it. The Atlantic, January 31, 2022.
Williams posted a page on NASA's official website asking for public help to find the trees. The page also contained a table listing the locations and species of known moon trees. Williams began to hear from people around the United States who had seen trees with plaques identifying them as moon trees. Williams began to manage a database listing details about such trees, including their location and species. In 2011, an article in ''Wired'' magazine described the effort, and provided Williams' email address, encouraging anyone to write who might have data on existing moon trees.The Mystery of the Missing Moon Trees:
15 years after NASA astronomer David Williams started searching for them, hundreds of trees grown from space-faring seeds are still missing. The “moon trees,” whose seeds circled the moon 34 times in Apollo 14 astronaut Stuart Roosa‘s pocket, were welcomed back to Earth with great fanfare in 1971. February 10, 2011, wired.com. As of 2022, efforts were continuing to identify and locate existing trees; the NASA page remains active.
official NASA website, accessed Feb 3, 2022.

In March 2021, the Royal Astronomical Society and the UK Space Agency asked for the help of the public to identify up to 15 Moon Trees that may be growing in the United Kingdom. As of April 2021, none of the trees that supposedly came to the UK have been identified.

Current efforts

The Moon Tree Foundation is an organization run by Roosa's daughter, Rosemary, which seeks to plant moon trees in regions around the world. The foundation sponsors and hosts ceremonies to plant new trees, with seeds produced by the original generation of trees that grew from the seeds carried by Roosa.Moon tree Planting ceremony
official website of Moon Tree Foundation, accessed February 3, 2022.

Locations

United States

Other countries

See also

* Moon rock
* Astrobotany
* List of individual trees

References

External links

The Moon Trees
''NASA Goddard Space Flight Center''

''Moon Tree Foundation''

"Houston, We Have Moon Trees"
Peeling Back the Bark blog, ''The Forest History Society''.

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Tree
Individual trees
Space-flown life
United States Bicentennial
Stuart Roosa